That was nothing like a dame….

We’re in France, and staying, as ever, in the middle of nowhere, with limited vocabulary and all sorts of potential hazards to remind us that this is the way to have eventful holidays. No sitting by the pool for us, no siree. Normally when we get here, the grass has reached around the height of a small child, and we regularly lose one as a result for the first couple of days.

Anyway, being the fit family, and having an even fitter family staying with us, no small commotion from this morning as six or seven of us came in from runs and bike rides, with news that there was an injured deer, hit by a car, on the road that runs near to the bottom of the house. There’s another blog to be written about the deer hereabout, and how they are an inspiration for us all to give up running and drive tractors, but that will have to wait for now. In the mean time, there is a deer with a broken neck on the side of the road. Breathing, and looking every inch just like Bambi’s mother.

We didn’t think the gendarmes would be particularly interested in the accident, so decided that the best next step would be to tell Yaside, who runs the Tabac in the nearby village. So off we rushed, with mission in our minds and a french dictionary by our sides.

‘What’s the french for deer?’, said Mrs Emu

So I looked it up – ‘Chevreux’, I said, ‘or Daim, if it’s a female’. Which it was.

Rushed into the Tabac to break the bad news. Now, what we were trying to say was that there was a deer with its neck broken, about 3km down the road, and we weren’t sure what to do. We should have twigged that the questions about whether there were any witnesses or police on the scene weren’t the sort of enquiries that normal French folk make about a dying deer.

Unfortunately, given that Daim looks and sounds a bit like Dame, what Mrs Emu had actually said was that there was a woman 3km up the road with a broken neck, but still breathing. And that if Yaside got a move on he might be able to have it for his dinner.

All of which is a bit embarrassing. I really think we’re fitting in here.